Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a patella brace used in the gadget therapy of patella/thighbone troubles, particularly in the outside dislocation of patella, for the protection, correction and removal of pains. More particularly, it relates to the gadget for preventing the troubles of kneejoints in sports such as volleyball and basketball in which kneejoints usually undergo excessive physical burdens.
Troubles of patella/thighbone should be treated in accordance with the individual condition of the patients, that is, the type and degree of the trouble. Operations of tha patient in serious troubles have been thoroughly studied and are being well attended, while the preservative therapy of less serious nature of troubles are, particularly the gadget therapy are not beint taken up for studies with sufficient seriousness and no remedy worth mentioning has been accorded.
It is so said because of the drawbacks of the conventional patella brace which restricts the patient's physical movements, giving great inconveniences in daily life and causing functional obstacles to other positions of the body, and that its wearing is especially disliked by women for calisthenic reason. Many girls participate in the sport club activities such as of volleyball and basketball these days in junior and senior high schools. Some of them are suffering from patella troubles. The symptom in most of these cases is that the patella moves to the outside laterally (toward the gastrocnemius side or a little upward). There are many cases in which the reason of their occurance and causes are not clear as to why it concentrates on girls. And any fundamentally effective therapy is not known yet, and the only method usually used is to wear a therapeutical gadget for correcting the dislocation of patella. Such a gadget is, however, generally bulky, difficult to handle, with a feeling of unfitness and sense of incompatibility, and disagreeable in appearance.
The knee joint is situated between the bottom end of the thighbone and the top end of the shinbone behind the patella. These bones are jointed together by many ligaments such as the joint capsule, inside and outside accessory ligaments, and cruciate ligament in the joint cavity, and are limited in direction and range of motion by these ligaments.
Since the reinforcements by these muscles are very powerful (this is readily proven by the fact that a fracture of bone is more apt to occur than a dislocation of joint by an external injury), the balance in reinforcement strength may be badly broken, affecting directly other parts when a trouble occurs. The most vulnerable point to it is the patella. When a therapy is to be applied to cure a subluxation of patella or fracture of patella by putting on a gadget, all bones and muscles concerned are moved or varied in position in complicated manner as the knee is bent or stretched. Thus, it is difficult to fix these parts and almost impossible to make therapy by mere forced pulling.
The conventional knee braces are roughly classified into two kinds. Among them the fixing-by-winding type fixes the upper and lower parts of the knee joint, that is, the lower part of the thigh and the upper part of the crus and confines the patella in position by the strong fixing force.
The cylindrical type is composed of an elastic fabric having a sufficient stretchability to allow the foot and the heel to pass through when it is put on or taken off. It is rather superior in giving mobility to the body than the general fixing-by-winding type and is widely used as knee supporters for sporting use.
In any case, the conventional gadgets are large in size excepting those supporters for sport use which are hardly expectable to be of any effectiveness for the therapy use. The fixing-by-winding type, in particular, which must be firmly secured in the upper and lower portions of the knee joint is conspicuous in this trend. It is not suitable as a gadget for therapy in view of the fact that the gadget therapy requires a longer period than others such as the operational therapy. The cylindrical type, despite its drawback in that its correcting effect is smaller, is certainly suitable for the sportsmen who move vigorously, because it is difficult to drop off once put on. However, for patients of patella, particularly for those who need not be helped by other persons in daily behaviors, the cylindrical gadget is very inconvenient, because it is necessary for putting on the gadget to bend the body or the leg deeply. Furthermore, it is difficult to decrease the pressure of the cylindrical brace on the patella gradually as the curing therapy proceeds.
In consideration of these points, the inventors designed previously a brace which had the advantages of fixing-by-winding type and removing the drawbacks of the cylindrical type.
This had a configuration 25 as shown in FIG. 5, comprising a fixing member 21 having an opening 20 for exposing the patella, and connecting belts 22, 22 extending from both the ends of the fixing parts 21 respectively, so as to apply an adequate tension to the patella. The embodiment in FIG. 5 contains a fixing means made of silicone rubber for the fixing part.
This brace had various advantages such as it is very easy in attaching as well as in detaching, giving scarcely any feel of incompatibility while putting on, being compact in size and light in weight, accompanying no musty feel due to perspiration, and that the pressure on the affected part can be adjusted as required according to the stage of progress of therapy. However, a number of problems were found by the studies and test uses afterwards. They are: (1) when the brace is applied to the affected part, with the expansion of the fixing member for exposing the patella the dislocation of the opening takes place from the knee joint part resulting in decreased pressure on the patella, and (2) the brace cannot cope with the minute difference in the direction of pressure to be applied from a patient to another. Against these problems, remedies had to be taken especially with regard to (1) for a fundamental improvement.